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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but the false modesty and arrogance overwhelm, October 1, 2007 I really want to rate this 2.5 stars. Do you have a friend who says things like, "Yes, I may have gotten 800 on the math SAT but I only got an embarrassing 690 verbal?" If so, then you might be able to tolerate Romano's prose. If not, be forewarned: unless you can complete the Saturday New York Times puzzle in 10 minutes, you will be put in your place over and over by his false modesty. He says things along the lines of "It once took me a humiliating 20 minutes to do a Saturday NYT puzzle." If it's humiliating for him, what's that mean to the rest of us? He goes further to make-fun of and out-right condemn anyone who doesn't follow is own code of crossword conduct. If you look a word up, you're cheating and he can't imagine why you would do that. (Perhaps so you can learn words you don't know? Maybe to fill in a tough spot in the puzzle so you can continue to finish the rest of it and still have fun?) He implies that this is akin to just copying the answers from the next day's paper. There are also "facts" that I really have to question. He says he can finish a Monday puzzle in something like 60 seconds. It would take longer than that just to write the answers down if someone were reading the clues to you. Add in the time to flick your eyes from the clues to the grid and it becomes absurd. I can speed read but your comprehension deceases when you do. In a crossword puzzle, there's no context to help you when you misread a word. One letter difference changes the meaning entirely. In addition, even the easiest puzzles have clues that have more than one answer that is commonly used (genetic material can be RNA or DNA; mid-east leader can be EMIR or AMIR or any of a number of different spellings; there are several five letter "GREEK LETTER"s.) It takes time to go back. Even doing a "World's Easiest Crossword"-level puzzle that uses a 6th grade vocabulary and no words over 5 letters and reading only the across clues (not needing to read the down clues) would take me more than 60 seconds to fill out if my writing were to actually be remotely legible and in the correct little boxes. (But then, I'm a moron-- I'm only a Wednesday/Thursday-level solver.) I guess Romano is some freaky genius who not only can read and write in tiny boxes elsewhere on the page at the same time but he has ESP and always knows exactly what the puzzle author was thinking when composing the crossword. Given that, there is a lot of interesting information about the history of the New York Times Crossword puzzle in general and Will Shortz, its current editor, in particular. I came to respect, admire and actually like Shortz, who comes off as a nice, reasonable, easy-going fellow. There's information about who creates these teasers, the difference in puzzles across the Atlantic, and the anatomy of a puzzle. I also found the description of what a crossword puzzle tournament is like and the quirky people who attend to be entertaining. I found myself over and over wishing this had been written by someone else who couldn't possibly compete in the tournament (or would come in last) or that Romano had left his own role out of it and was more objective. While personal anecdotes and opinions can add to a story, make it more human, his arrogance and randiness (he is constantly on the prowl) are not just distracting, they're offensive. Instead of being appropriately impressed by and interested in all the contestants who compete (I think even the person who comes in last place is probably pretty darn good) I could only focus on him. By the time I finished the book I almost gave up solving puzzles because I felt like any reasonable person would realize I am too stupid and ignorant for real crossword puzzles and would be better off sticking to E-Z word searches and connect-the-dots. There's no doubt Romano is extremely intelligent-- he is this expert solver and he implies English isn't even his native language. But does he have to rub it in every other sentence? Last thoughts: the book was a little longer than it needed to be but it does include almost all of the puzzles from the competition, which was fabulous. I would have liked to see a few more puzzles, perhaps a sample from the New York Times for each day of the week and puzzles from some of the other publications (very briefly) mentioned like the Washington Post. While I certainly didn't buy the book for the puzzles, it would be very interesting to compare methodologies. I would have liked Romano to spend a little more time discussing puzzles in other papers. Also, acknowledging that people have to start somewhere and encouraging people to improve their skills with recommendations on how to do so would have been much more appropriate than his constant bragging. Then he might help people discover just how fun it is to do this pastime, recruiting people to the game rather than making people feel like outsiders who shouldn't even try. One more thing: He denigrates Sudoku as being just a "math puzzle" (what's wrong with math puzzles?) but Sudoku has absolutely nothing to do with math. There is no math involved at all. Any 9 characters or shapes would do. I've seen some using letters. Numbers are just easiest for us to recognize and pattern quickly, not to mention that it crosses language barriers by using Anglo-Saxon numerals which are more commonly used than the English alphabet. Sudoku is first and foremost a logic puzzle and could appeal to even a word smith who hasn't completed 3rd grade math. So, to sum up, I don't recommend this book. Watch the movie "Wordplay" about the tournament. Or better yet, Will Sholtz wrote a companion book to the movie Wordplay: The Official Companion Bookwhich I haven't read but might be a better insight in to the tourney. I can't believe it could be worse.